


(Mac - Control) + Murdoc

by Secret_Library98, TetrodotoxinB



Series: Bad Things Bingo 2018 [16]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Abduction, Abuse of nursery rhymes, Acute stress disorder symptoms (Mac’s burgeoning PTSD), Bad Things Happen Bingo, Chemical paralysis, Choking, Conscious intubation/extubation, Crying, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Distorted Thinking, Drowning, Electrical torture, Food, Found Family, Gross misuse of multimeter probes for extremely nefarious purposes, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Intubation as torture, Matty is the absolute best, Mechanical ventilation, Medical Torture, Needles, Nonconsensual Touching, Nonconsensual genital contact, Panic Attacks, References to parental death and abandonment, Restraints, Square filled: I've got you now my pretty, Torture, Verbal Abuse, anger issues, heavy on the hurt, kind restraints, nonconsensual drug use, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 01:26:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20480678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Library98/pseuds/Secret_Library98, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Murdoc gets six hours alone with Mac and he has a specially crafted room full of “toys” at his disposal. This goesat leastas badly as you’re imagining.Created for Bad Things Happen Bingo. Prompt: I’ve got you now my pretty.





	(Mac - Control) + Murdoc

**Author's Note:**

> Words mostly by Tetro.  
Science and other incidentals (like handholding for Tetro) due in large part to the extensive research of Secret_Library. 
> 
> PLEASE MIND THE TAGS. This is your only warning.

Mac blinks and groans as the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights feels like knives in his skull. He remembers going for his morning run but nothing after that. He goes to sit up, but he’s restrained — wrists and ankles — and there’s an IV in his right arm. His head throbs harder and it reminds him of the headache he had after Taser training in Basic. 

Restrained as he is, there really isn’t anywhere to go and no way to get there. He turns his head slowly, to avoid setting off the insistent throb, and looks around the room. To his right there’s the IV bag on a pole near his head. It’s labelled “0.9% Sodium Chloride” but Mac isn’t sure that saline is the only thing in the bag. Regardless, it is momentarily irrelevant as the tubing is clamped shut, or at least he assumes so since there’s nothing moving through the drip chamber. 

Beyond the bed, there’s a plastic folding table with three black, hard-plastic cases. One of them is open and from his flat vantage point Mac can only see bits of coated wire and a few control dials, but he can’t read any of the panel’s labels or make out what the wiring attaches to. 

Abandoning that particular avenue of inquiry, Mac turns to his left.

“Hi!”

Mac jumps involuntarily, recoiling from the face that has suddenly appeared directly in front of his own.

“Did you miss me? I’ve missed you.”

“Murdoc, what do you want?” Mac growls as he tries to regain what little equilibrium he had left.

Murdoc stands up straight to loom over Mac. “You, obviously. That’s why you’re here. You’re why I put all this together.”

Looking past Murdoc, Mac sees a cart with wrapped medical equipment and on yet another folding table there is what looks like a mechanical ventilator. Beside that are other cases, open to reveal rows of neatly organized vials, pill bottles, ampules, and an array of metal surgical instruments and hand tools. Mac tugs again at his bonds, harder this time because this situation isn’t looking great, and Murdoc laughs.

“You didn’t really think I’d go to all this trouble just for you to escape before we ever got started, did you?”

Mac scowls and turns his wrists in the cuffs. “You didn’t think I’d just lie here and let you do whatever you wanted, did you?”

Murdoc leans down, his face less than a foot from Mac’s, and whispers. “I don’t think you have a choice.”

The knowledge that Murdoc is correct, at least temporarily, is sickening. There really isn’t a way out. Mac’s going to have to depend on Jack and the others to find him because, unless something changes, it’s out of Mac’s hands. It’s not a thought that settles well and his fingers itch for something to do, anything to dissipate the anxiety of just waiting for whatever is next.

Murdoc tips his head to the side and smiles viciously. “Well, now that we’re on the same page about this, I’d really like to get started if it’s all the same to you. I’ve spent so much time planning and I’ve got so many new and fun games for us to play. I just can’t wait.”

Mac tugs violently at the padded leather cuffs on the bed. He can feel the way that the edges of the leather dig into his skin, even though the padding, but with the adrenaline in his system the pain barely registers.

“No reason to get all panicky yet, Angus. We’re starting out easy.”

Mac watches, his heart thundering in his chest, as Murdoc picks up a pair of safety shears. 

“Your clothes are just going to be in the way, and we want to have as much fun as possible, don’t we?”

“Murdoc, you’re insane,” Mac says, but his voice belies his frustration, and rather than threatening, he sounds the slightest bit panicked.

The safety shears _snip snip_ against Mac’s leg, and Murdoc shrugs. “You’re not the first to accuse me of that. I doubt you’ll be the last. But, I mean, I think that observation sort of misses the point. Sanity is so… commonplace. It’s boring. It’s uninventive. You and I, though, we’re special, unique, valuable.”

“There’s nothing valuable about you Murdoc,” Mac interjects. The shears reach his hip and Murdoc moves to the other leg to start cutting.

“No, no, see I think we’re more alike that you want to admit. You, you make things out of other things, you see ways to make your world do what you want in a way that no one else can. But me? I do the same thing, just in reverse. I take it apart piece by piece by piece. We’re two sides of the same coin.

“I’ve been thinking about that lately, all the ways we’re alike, and you’ve inspired me, MacGyver. You see, I have a very refined but somewhat narrow skillset, but watching you has given me the incentive to broaden my horizons. Honestly, it would have been embarrassing to show up here today with the same old techniques-” Murdoc pauses, again having reached Mac’s hip, and sets the safety shears down. Mac doesn’t move or lift his hips to help, but with a few sharp tugs the remnants of his pants come away, leaving Mac in his boxer briefs.

“Anyway, as I was saying, it would have been embarrassing not to put in the effort to really impress you. All good dates involve some element of preparation and pageantry.”

“This is _not_ a date, and we are nothing alike,” Mac asserts. He wants to argue more, to tear down all the stupid, baseless, nonsense that Murdoc has been saying, Mac knows it’s just a waste of energy. Murdoc wouldn’t listen and Mac ought to be spending more of his mental energy on escape, not arguing with a sadist.

“Hmm, well, different love languages and all that, I guess. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

Murdoc rapidly dispenses with Mac’s shirt, snipping up both sleeves to the neck and then up the middle. There’s a brief moment, once his shirt is removed, where Mac worries that his underwear is next to go, but then Murdoc sets the shears down on the rolling cart and moves on to something else.

“You know, as a child I always loved reading about vivisection. I have always wanted to try it out but life just kept getting in the way. Now, however, I have all the time I need and the perfect partner.”

Mac pulls against the cuffs with enough force to break his thumbs, but nothing gives. The restraints are so tight against his wrists that even if his thumbs were to break, he still wouldn’t be able to slip out. 

“HELP!” he screams. Torture is one thing, a thing that Mac can survive whether or not he wants to. But vivisection? “_HELP!!!_ Somebody! I need help!!”

Murdoc laughs and begins to tear open packaging. Mac yells and yells and yells. 

“Well, if you’re quite done with that little display, we’ve got a game to get onto. Besides, there’s no one here to hear you, MacGyver. Just you and me. Alone at last.”

Mac’s felt a whole lot of fear in his life but even looking down the barrel of a gun didn’t prepare him for the utter dread and mortal terror of watching Murdoc pop open an ampule and draw up the contents in a syringe. Mac’s heart races and he breathes fast through his nose, watching with mounting panic and wishing he could simply read the words on the ampule, as though it would change anything. 

“This part isn’t going to hurt. Unfortunately. This is just a little something to help you relax.”

Mac thrashes against the bed despite the futility, anything to avoid simply accepting Murdoc’s plans. “When Jack finds you, you’ll regret this!”

Murdoc laughs as he unclamps the IV line. “Jack isn’t going to find you, _hoss._ It’s just you and me. Now be aware, this may cause some unpleasant side effects. Try to relax.”

Again, Mac jerks his arm as far as he can from Murdoc, but Murdoc puts the needle into the IV port with ease and depresses the plunger.

“You know, I’ve never used this particular drug before, but the label says sixty seconds to maximum efficacy.”

His wrists and ankles ache from pulling but Mac knows that he only has seconds before he’s too far gone to stop whatever this is. But the more he pulls the harder it gets. In a matter of seconds, he’s too tired to keep fighting.

“What- what-” Mac gasps, too out of breath to finish the question. 

“What did I give you?” Murdoc shrugs. “I might not have been totally clear about what kind of relaxation I was talking about. I gave you succinylcholine — it’s a paralytic.”

“I- I c-” Mac doesn’t have the air to make words and he tries to reach out. Murdoc has to help. He’s going to suffocate. He’s going to die in a matter of minutes.

“Don’t worry. We’re just getting started. Besides, you’re looking so stressed from work. A little relaxation will do you good,” Murdoc says. Mac can hear him ripping open packaging on the cart by the ventilator. 

In his chest, Mac’s heart races even faster, desperately recirculating his already oxygen-depleted blood for any last molecules to fuel his cells. He tries to move his diaphragm, to belly-breathe, to do anything to get air into his body. 

It’s about then that Mac’s bladder releases. He can feel the warmth of his own urine soak his underwear and then the sheet on the bed beneath him. 

“Oh, little Angus. I thought you were all grown up. Do you still have widdle accidents? Wet the bed at night? No wonder daddy got tired of you.” If Mac weren’t restrained and preoccupied by his imminent suffocation and death, he’d probably deck Murdoc. As it is, the humiliation of peeing himself, even coupled with Murdoc’s taunts, barely penetrates his panicked haze.

Murdoc’s watch beeps and he looks at his wrist. “Oh good, a minute already. Fantastic.”

Mac hears the cart roll up alongside the bed and he wills his body to move, but phosphenes dance in his vision and his body doesn’t so much as twitch.

“I have been reliably informed that this might hurt. Do hold your commentary until the end.” Murdoc smiles and then chuckles. “Oh wait, you won’t have any commentary because you can’t talk. Oops.”

Above him, Mac sees Murdoc lean in, laryngoscope in hand. The relief Mac feels knowing that he’s not going to suffocate like this is almost completely subsumed by the panicked realization that Murdoc is going to have absolute control of Mac’s breathing for as long as Mac remains intubated.

The metal blade of the scope is cold against his tongue and in his throat, and it feels like being gagged in the worst way. If he weren’t paralyzed he’d vomit, instead the sensation just makes his eyes water. Tears slip down his face, the sensation of something in his throat akin to being punched in the nose.

The tube that follows _does_ hurt. It feels like being stabbed in the throat while simultaneously choking on an entire glass of water. While Mac is preoccupied with the pain and fear, Murdoc none too gently rams a bite block in Mac’s mouth to keep him from biting the tube closed later. The sensations overwhelm him and tears begin to run steadily down his cheeks, and he thinks, for the first time, that maybe Jack can’t get there in time. He already hasn’t.

As sound, sight, and sensation seem to grow distant and Mac knows that he’s losing consciousness, possibly for the last time, Mac feels something jarring the tube in his mouth. There’s a series of beeps, a hiss, and then his chest rises. Within seconds his vision begins to clear, but each inspiration feels incomplete and unnatural. He still feels like he’s suffocating, like he’s being denied the amount of air he really needs to breathe. 

Maybe Murdoc got the tidal volume wrong. Maybe his plan is to slowly suffocate Mac. Mac wonders how long he could survive on too little oxygen, if it would go on long enough for his body would be able to compensate by building more red blood cells. 

That brings up the possibility of starvation — there’s no way to eat while intubated. Murdoc would have to place an NG tube, and Mac can’t decide if that’s more work than Murdoc would be willing to go to, or if he’d do it just to keep Mac alive longer. With nutrition, Mac could last weeks, longer if Murdoc is careful. Without, Mac would be lucky to last more than a couple of days, if that, given the likelihood of severe torture. 

He can feel himself spiralling, the panic overwhelming his ability to stay calm or think rationally. All he knows is that he is going to _die_ and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. But even though his heart beats wildly, the ventilator moves at the same steady pace leaving him dizzy and a little faint. 

“Oh, goody. You know, I wasn’t actually sure that this was going to work, but boy it sure was a thrill to watch and see.” 

Something else rolls up alongside the bed then Murdoc drops out of Mac’s field of vision. He’s sitting, probably resting on the edge of the bed, if the way the bed moves is any indication. Tears continue to run down Mac’s face, no longer just a physical response to pharyngeal trauma, but now also a response to his emotional distress. 

“So while we’re waiting on the next part of this, I thought- oh don’t cry, Angus. I’m right here. We’re in this together.” Murdoc’s gloved hand gently wipes the tears off of Mac’s cheek. He wants to crawl out of his skin, wants to scour himself until he can’t feel Murdoc’s hands on his skin anymore. 

“Anyway, I thought a great way to pass the time would be for us to talk about our fathers. You know, I do understand what it’s like, to want your father to love you, to want him to _want_ you. It’s why I’m so protective of my own son.”

The click and hiss of the ventilator punctuates the silence when Murdoc pauses.

“I know you think I do horrible things to people, and while that’s entirely debatable — I mean ‘horrible’ is really just a matter of perspective — I am actually a good father. I listen to Cassian, give him life lessons, help him with his homework, teach him about the world. I make time in my life to be there for him. Not like your father who simply couldn’t hack it once your mother died, and nothing like my father who... well, better not to dwell on the past.

“But I think, in the long run, it’s made us both extremely resilient and resourceful people. And look at us, heck, look at _you._ If daddy hadn’t been so flaky, you wouldn’t be here right now. So I mean, thanks Dad, am I right?”

Murdoc wipes more tears from Mac’s face while he talks, and slowly, the panic turns to anger and disgust. Murdoc is wrong, so, so _wrong_ about him, about his father, about everything. Mac is _nothing_ like him. Mac does what he does to help people, to save lives. He’ll be the first to admit that sometimes people die in his line of work, but they’re usually bad people, people who are trying to hurt others. But when it comes to civilians, Mac would lay down his own life to protect them. It’s not even a question. 

“Well, I can see that you’ve calmed down a bit now. Or, well, maybe calm is the wrong word. You’re quite angry — I can see it in the little wrinkles right around your eyes.” Murdoc softly pokes the outside corner of Mac’s right eye, and then leans back again. “You know, panic is a really dashing look on you, but anger is just so much fun. It’s hard to decide how I like you best, but at least we get to try out all kinds of emotions together. And speaking of emotions, this next part has become my new favorite party trick. I cannot tell you how many rats I’ve bought from the pet store just to play around with this stuff. It’s called perflubron and wow is it special. It’s so special, in fact, that I brought enough for us to play with.”

Mac’s seen the reports — DoD and DARPA tests using PFCs like perflubron for high-G flights simulations. It’s theoretical at best, definitely not anything some stolen ventilator would be equipped to handle. If he doesn’t suffocate, he’ll die of respiratory acidosis. It won’t be a great way to go, not with a chest full of liquid, but given Murdoc’s penchant for pain, it’s probably the gentlest way out of this, unless Jack’s planning to make a sudden appearance. Unfortunately, it’s looking less and less like Jack’s timing is going to mesh with Murdoc’s, and the reality of what’s about to happen sits like a stone in Mac’s stomach.

The rolling stool moves, the wheels clacking over the concrete floor, and Mac can hear Murdoc rifling around somewhere behind his head. “Now I know you’re thinking, ‘but Murdoc, the ventilator can’t move all that fluid,’” he says pitching his voice lower in a terrible parody of Mac. “And you’re right, it can’t.”

Mac desperately tries to fight the promised torment. It’s been several minutes since he was drugged, and Mac tries again to move, hoping that the drug is rapidly losing efficacy. His fingers don’t twitch, so much as a sluggishly flex against the sheet, but it’s an improvement, even if it takes all of his focus to execute it.

“Say, ah.”

Still unable to blink, or at least close his eyes, Mac watches as Murdoc disconnects the ventilator from the tracheal tube and replaces it with a funnel. His chest already aches, his body trying to fight for more air as his source of oxygen is removed, but his movements are small, weak things which effect no change. Mac is forced to watch in mute horror as Murdoc lifts a beaker of what Mac can only hope is perflubron and begins pouring it into the trach tube. 

The moment the liquid enters his lungs his entire body spasms in a series of uncoordinated jerks. He doesn’t quite manage a cough, not that it would do anything to remove the invading liquid. His lungs feel heavy, painfully so, like the worst pneumonia he’s ever had times one hundred. The liquid doesn’t burn, as such, instead the weight of it seems to be flattening his lung tissue, compressing it in such a way that his chest is being crushed from the inside out. It’s what Mac thinks fear would feel like if it were a sensation rather than an emotion. 

The liquid pours slowly, and it takes nearly a minute for Murdoc to pour the last drops into the funnel. Mac feels the slightest edge of oxygen deprivation begin to creep in, but it’s slow, slower than it should be without ventilation. Maybe it’s the perflubron, maybe he just can’t estimate time because he can’t focus on anything other than the sensation of drowning, but either way, Mac expects Murdoc to reconnect the trach tube to the vent at any second. Instead, Murdoc lifts a second beaker — just as full as the first — and begins to pour. Mac thinks he can feel the liquid in his trachea, pooling high enough that it triggers his cough reflex, even though the trach tube prevents that, but his body barely responds, little spasms running down his sides and up his neck. 

This time when Murdoc sets aside the empty beaker, Mac isn’t sure what to expect. His visions is starting to fade a little at the edges and it’s probably been a couple of minutes since he was properly ventilated. The thought of another 500mL beaker of liquid makes Mac’s stomach cold. He waits in panicked anticipation until Murdoc reconnects the ventilator to the trach tube, and Mac’s chest rises. This time, each inspiration feels properly full, but like the air is cement. It’s wet and heavy, suddenly a thousand times more agitating now that his chest is moving, and _he’s drowning._ His body jerks, more vigorously now with both the passage of time and the reapplication of oxygen, and Mac tries desperately to fight his way out the restraints. 

“Shh, shh, little Angus. I’m here. There’s no reason to panic. Would I kill you this early in our game, hmm? Of course not. Just relax.”

Mac knows, perversely, that Murdoc is probably telling the truth. He’s spent the last couple of years chasing Mac down with the sole intention of getting him in just this position. But logic can’t override what the better part of a liter of fluid feels like sitting inside his chest.

Murdoc’s gloved hand trails carefully down Mac’s left arm. Mac flinches at the touch this time, his body finally coordinated enough for that, and Murdoc smiles. He runs his fingers back up Mac’s arm and then down the midline of his torso. As he moves, he starts humming “rock-a-bye baby.” It’s eerie and disconcerting in a way that only Murdoc seems to be, and Mac does something that might be a shudder if he had more neuromuscular function. 

His fingers trail lower, bypassing his groin just on the inside of his thigh. Mac’s never been alone with Murdoc for any extended period of time and he has no idea what Murdoc might deign to do as the time passes. The thought that it might extend into something sexual makes Mac’s blood run cold in a way that nothing else has so far. But instead of panic, Mac just feels angry. Once he gets out of this-

“Oh, look. You’re angry again. Good. I really prefer it when you’re all the way with me for what we’re doing.”

Mac twists, his body bucking — still weakly — against the bed, and Murdoc chuckles. 

“I see the paralytic has mostly worn off. This part of the game is more fun when you have to make the choice to let me hurt you. See, you can fight, it won’t change anything for me — you know how much I love to watch you struggle — but it will hurt more. If you accept that I’m going to hurt you and that you can’t stop me — okay, well, it’s definitely still going to hurt, _but_ it’ll hurt less. And you get to decide how much you’re willing to take. Do you want to conserve your energy in case you get loose? Try to plan ahead to fight me? It would, admittedly, be the strategic thing to do. But it also means being a good boy. Can you be a good boy, Angus?” Murdoc pauses and leans in close. “Were you a good boy for daddy?”

Mac bites hard against the bite block, his fists balling up tight by his sides. This time, the movement sloshes this liquid in his lungs triggering his cough reflex. Before he can stop it, he’s coughing, fluid rushing up the trach tube, only to be forced back down into his lungs as the vent reinflates his lungs. Everything burns — his lungs, his ribs, his abdominal muscles. Every muscle that could be used in breathing is firing at once in a futile attempt to clear the offending liquid. In the background, the ventilator alarms, signalling some sort of malfunction, but rather than attend to it, Murdoc stands beside Mac and watches. 

It’s a vicious cycle. Every cough moves more of the liquid which in turn triggers more coughing. But there’s no way for the coughing to be effective, no way to get the liquid out of his lungs. Instead, he coughs and coughs and coughs until his vision grays and he starts to lose consciousness. As his vision gets darker and darker, his body suddenly stops coughing just long enough for Mac to break the cycle. It still hurts, but it’s a relief to simply lay there and let the machine breathe for him.

“See? Good behavior feels better doesn’t it? Now all you have to do is be a good boy for me. You’re such a fast learner. I know you can do it.”

Mac turns his face ever so slightly towards Murdoc and glares. He’s never liked killing before, and he’s not going to start doing it now, but he’s beginning to understand the appeal, at least in this particular situation. He doesn’t want to give Murdoc the satisfaction of passively allowing his own torture, but then again, passive or not, it seems like it’s going to happen either way. And he has to admit, if that’s what fighting gets him, Mac isn’t interested.

But Mac also knows that Murdoc has plans beyond just ventilator-assisted torture. He hasn’t so much as touched the cases on the other side of the bed. Mac tries not to think about what could be waiting because he’s not sure he wants to know. 

While Mac seethes about his apparent no-win choices, Murdoc continues to gently run his gloved fingertips over Mac’s skin. It’s possessive and disgusting. Mac feels owned, degraded, just a thing for Murdoc to play with. But it’s not just the touching, it’s the intent behind it, the way he lingers on pulse points and scars, along veins and nerves, over vital organs and the contours of Mac’s muscles. Murdoc may not be a scientist, but he knows every vulnerable place on the human body as well as Mac knows differential calculus. But Mac doesn’t need actual calculus to do the math — cooperating, behaving, whatever Murdoc wants to call it, is about the only way he won’t end up dead before Jack finds him. It’s barely even a choice. 

“I see you’ve made your choice,” Murdoc observes. “Let’s test it out, shall we?”

Murdoc locks eyes with Mac and drags one finger runs slowly up the length of Mac’s clothed penis. “Ah, ah, ah. Eyes on me, _hoss._”

Mac shudders, nearly gagging, but he doesn't break eye contact or otherwise move, not after he triggered the coughing fit earlier. It's better than choking himself out by coughing but not by much.

Murdoc pulls his hand back and smiles as he leans over the bed. “My, my, MacGyver, you are always eager to impress. But as you know, I am quite the same, which is another one of our many similarities. Anyway, so to impress you, I think we had better get on with the show, hmm?”

Mac tracks Murdoc as he goes over to the table with the black cases. 

“These,” Murdoc pats the closed plastic containers, “are not for right now. This is for much later in the game. Right now, we have this.”

Murdoc picks up the case with the control panel and wires and sets it between Mac’s legs. Restrained as he is — both wrists and ankles cuffed to the bedframe — Mac can’t do anything to dislodge it or damage it. Beside him, Murdoc rolls up the supply cart from earlier, and with a single sweep of his arm, everything on it cascades to the floor. 

“There. Now we have space to work.”

Mac lifts his head as far as he can in an attempt to see the writing on the control panel or get a glimpse of what the wires attach to, but his range of motion is limited by both the trach tube as well as the fluid in his lungs that sloshes, threatening to start another coughing fit. 

“Don’t spoil the surprise, silly. No looking,” Murdoc chides. He punctuates the “request” with a seemingly playful slap to Mac’s thigh, and Mac rolls his eyes.

The initial panic of being slowly drowned has started to wear off, and the sensation has turned into static, albeit extremely loud and painful static. But Mac can focus through pain so he uses the moment to take in what he can.

The room either has no external windows or it’s night, but given that he was abducted on his morning run that’s pretty improbable, especially given that he hadn’t wet or soiled himself until he was given the paralytic, which leaves being underground somewhere. It makes sense, the ceiling is concrete and so are the walls that he can see. The both have water stains, some of them iron ochre, mostly on the walls, and others some sort of secondary efflorescence stalactites. The iron ochre stains mean that there’s iron-heavy soil in direct contact with the concrete, and the efflorescence means they most likely have a road or parking structure over them. Mac listens for the sounds of traffic or footfalls, but there’s nothing other than the click and hiss of the ventilator and the hum of the fluorescent lights. 

He tries desperately to recall anything that happened to him before waking up on the table, but he keeps drawing a blank. Heck, he can’t even remember exactly where he was when he was taken. Relying solely on “being underground” and “near cars” isn’t really enough information to help narrow things down.

Mac would love to use his sense of smell to see if he could pick up on anything in the room, but without being able to breathe, he’s mostly relegated to whatever particulate passively migrates into his olfactory cells. It’s nothing he can make out and since he can’t circulate the air, the odors just overload his sense of smell and it leaves him with nothing. 

“Well, I can see you hard at work over there trying to puzzle out just where we are, your little eyes scanning all over the room, and I do love to watch you work, really, you’re just so good at what you do, but I’ve got something we can work on together! Aren’t you excited?”

Mac shakes his head very slightly and Murdoc laughs, giving Mac his coy smile. 

“Come, come, now, MacGyver. Don’t be shy. Because look!” Murdoc holds up two multimeter probes in his left hand. Mac raises an eyebrow and hopes that he looks suitably unimpressed because unimpressed is rather the opposite of how he feels.

“Well, don’t be rude. It’s hurtful. I went out of my way to find these specific probes — they’re three inches long and two whole millimeters thick. The probes themselves won’t do a whole lot of damage, though you’re definitely going to feel them, but they’re long enough that I can get to pretty much any muscle group I want.”

Mac raises his eyebrows again. He’s been tortured before, and if he’s being honest, stabbed with a bunch of multimeter probes isn’t going to be fun, but it’s also not the horrific, bloody end he expected.

“Oh, did I disappoint you? You don’t look… scared.” 

Mac glares at Murdoc, gestures what little he can at the probes, and shrugs.

Murdoc takes moment, and very visibly pretends to suddenly understand. “Oh, _oh!!_ Oh, you thought I was just going to poke you a bunch. Well, I mean, I am, but no these bad boys hook up to this fancy control box. Now have you heard of a nerve conduction test? Well, neither had I and truly all this science stuff _bores_ me, but I know how much you love it. Anyway, so they use shocks delivered with little probes into muscles to test for, oh who cares what. But I saw that and thought of you. So I modified the test and the probes and the voltage — all of it really — and made this little do-hickey.” Murdoc smiles, again with the fake coy expression. “Are you ready to try this out?”

Mac shakes his head minutely and glares.

Murdoc frowns. “I have to admit, that’s a tad bit disappointing, but I’m sure it’s just pre-game anxiety, nothing you won’t get over once we get started.”

Mac resists the urge to snort at Murdoc, not that he could. Besides, trying to snort would just trigger another coughing fit which wouldn’t convey Mac’s disapproval to Murdoc in any way.

Murdoc goes to the box and Mac can hear the flick of buttons. He turns his attention to the room again, watching for any further clues as to their location. There are HVAC ducts in the room, nearly out of his line of sight due to the immobility of his head, and he can’t believe that he missed them before. Mac tries to get a view of the ductwork; if he can figure out where it goes, then he can get an idea of where they might be in relation to some kind of window or-

Pain flares twice, in rapid succession, in Mac’s right thigh and he flinches hard both times. 

“Oh, come now, that was barely a pinch,” Murdoc chides.

Mac glares side-long at his captor and watches as Murdoc’s smile turns into a grin as he reaches down to the control panel. A switch flips, electricity burning through him and forcing his muscles to contract involuntarily. Mac screams silently, his muscles fighting the inevitable push and pull of the ventilator. He tries to relax, to let the ventilator work for him, but he can’t calm down because the pain isn’t stopping. After just a moment, he begins to choke and cough. It’s agonizing — his intercostals contract involuntarily and Mac can feel the way his neck pulls, the little dip between his collarbones jerking as the tracheal tugging sets in. His entire body twists and pulls as he fights for air against the sensation of drowning. 

Abruptly the shock stops and Mac wants to relax against the table, wants to be done with the pain and the coughing and the drowning, but his body _won’t stop._ Tears drip down his face at the helplessness of the situation, and distantly, Mac is aware that Murdoc is leaning over him, his gloved hand running the length of Mac’s arm. 

“Shh, shh, you’re safe, little Angus. Just breathe. Or well, maybe not _breathe,_ but do try to relax. We have so much more to do.”

It takes Mac another couple of minutes to force his body to relax against the table, and slowly the sensation of drowning recedes. He feels limp, wrung out, exhausted in every fibre of his being. He wants to crawl into his bed, pull the covers up, and sleep until this is nothing more than a bad dream. Murdoc must read the desperation in his eyes because he smiles, still rubbing Mac’s arm, and leans over his face, “Do you need your mommy, little Angus? Maybe your daddy? Pity, they don’t want you.” And then Murdoc is gone, digging in the black case for something else, and Mac wishes he was anywhere but here, wishes Jack would _hurry._

Three more probes pierce his skin — two in his right arm and another jammed into his right pectoral muscle at an oblique angle. They hurt but Mac relaxes into the bed and tries not to think of how he’s doing exactly what Murdoc asked, even though Murdoc has to see it, has to know and enjoy the way Mac _behaves_ even when he’s being stabbed with metal pins. 

The next round of electricity zings across his body and Mac twists, his body trying — and failing — to escape the pain. Surprisingly, however, this shock doesn’t last as long. This time, Mac collapses back to the bed and immediately tries to force his chest to stop fighting the vent. There are a few coughs that Mac manages to abort before it can trigger a fit, and then he goes limp on the bed, letting the vent set the pace.

“Oh, you are so good, MacGyver. Just letting me do whatever I want, not fighting me anymore, not fighting anything. I do have to ask, are you this good for Jack? Matty? Do you do whatever they ask you to do, even when it hurts? I mean, I don’t really need to ask, because of course you do. You’ll do anything they ask you to. Just like you’ll learn to do anything I ask you to.”

Mac grits his teeth against the bite block and thrashes against the bed in Murdoc’s general direction, and pain bursts bright where the probes dig into his muscles. Fuck Murdoc. Mac doesn’t “just” take orders — in fact, he violates them more often than not. Mac does what it takes to protect the people who need it, it’s just that sometimes protecting himself isn’t at the top of the list, even if maybe it ought to be. If Mac gets hurt as a consequence of that choice, well, it was his choice and certainly not because of some order from Jack or Matty. 

Murdoc smiles like he’s being indulgent, like a parent humoring a small child who’s got some cute, but ridiculous belief. “I know you don’t agree with me now, Angus, but give it time. You’ll come to see that I’m not really any different than them.”

Without waiting for a reply that Mac can’t give, Murdoc turns back to the control panel. His muscles contract violently again. It’s agony and Mac doesn’t even have the simple mercy of breathing through it. This time, it goes and goes and goes, the shock seeming to last into eternity. By the time it stops, the coughing fit that follows is all but inevitable. Mac shakes against the bed as his body fights for control of its most basic function — respiration — and he’s too tired to make the spasms in his chest _stop._

“Get it under control, MacGyver. You want to be a good boy for me, don’t you?”

Mac couldn’t care less about being anyone’s good boy, least of all Murdoc’s, but it doesn’t matter because he can’t get it under control. Spots dance in his eyes and his vision starts to go dark around the edges. 

“You’re not being very good,” Murdoc observes, coming around the table to the head of the bed. He pops the vent off the trach tube and puts his thumb over the opening, blocking Mac’s airflow. It’s only another few seconds — desperate, terrifying, excruciating seconds — before his vision darkens entirely and he passes out.

*****

It’s the sound that registers first. A loud smack, like an open-handed slap, rings in Mac’s ears. The pain registers a few seconds after, his face warming to a bright, hot sting.

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” Murdoc sing-songs.

Mac blinks and the garish fluorescent lights above him cause him to recoil from their glare. It doesn’t take long to orient himself to his situation. The deep, stabbing ache of his chest; the sensation of being strangled; the sharp pain of the probes in his muscles; and the hiss and click of the ventilator remind him _exactly_ what’s going on. 

“Oh goody, you’re back.” As if to punctuate his point, Murdoc pulls one of the multimeter probes out of Mac’s leg and jabs it back in. Mac flinches hard but it’s just one pain in an ocean of hurt. And he’s tired. He’s so, so tired.

But where one stab failed to produce a significant response, having yet another pushed slowly, inch by inch, into his right leg does the trick. From there, six more follow — three to his left leg, two to his left arm, and a final probe in his left pec. 

“You know, you really look good like this. I know the human brain is programmed to appreciate symmetry, but it really suits you!” 

Mac glares sidelong at Murdoc only for him to laugh bashfully. 

“Oh, I know, you’re not good at taking compliments, but it’s true. I bet once we try it, you’ll agree with me. Come on, whaddya say? Shall we take it for a spin?”

Murdoc grins and turns back to the control panel. This time, there’s nothing that could prepare Mac for the pain. It overwhelms everything — his mind narrows to the need to escape and nothing else. But all of his limbs are immobilized by the electricity that contracts his muscles, holding him locked almost still against the bed. The probes in his chest tighten his pectorals and some of the nearby intercostals and every inspiration that the vent forces into him has to fight against the pressure. It feels like being crushed.

At some point the shock stops, and the fear that was being held at bay by the pain overwhelms Mac. Tears run down his face and his fingers bunch in the sheet. He wants it to stop, wants to go home, he wants Jack to get him out of here. He tries to remember what he learned in EOD training, techniques for when their nerves got the better of them, but all of it seems out of reach. There is only fear and the knowledge that he’s helpless in the situation. Nothing else.

But that shock is followed by another and another and another, and there’s no way he can stop panicking. Murdoc periodically twists the probes, digging them deeper into Mac’s flesh and tearing the tissue as he does. After a while, Mac is willing to do anything to make it stop, it doesn’t matter if he has to “behave” or “relax” or “be a good boy” because no matter how humiliating it is, anything is better than the pain of the shocks and the fear of Murdoc disconnecting the ventilator again.

The switch flips again, a little click that makes Mac jump, but nothing happens. Murdoc cackles and claps his hands.

“Oh my, that worked so quickly! It’s only been just over an hour and yet you’re already conditioned to know what that sound means for you. You know not everyone learns so quickly? It’s why I respect you so much — your capacity to learn. You can take one thing, like a click, and turn it into something else, like fear. You’re just a damn genius, and I cannot tell you how much fun it is, what a relief honestly, to finally work with someone who can match me. You’re a gift, Angus MacGyver.”

Mac tries to glare at Murdoc, to tell him without words how much he does not agree with that stupid assessment, but he knows the effect is ruined by the tears on his cheeks. Murdoc leans over Mac, tenderly wiping them away.

“You’re hurting so bad, aren’t you? But even so, you’re trying to be a big boy, trying not to cry anymore because only little babies cry. But it hurts, I bet anything that if Jack was here, he’d be more than willing to take your place. Would you let him? I mean you’re smart, Angus, you do the math. You know that eventually, your body won’t be able to withstand this kind of abuse. You _need_ the break and I bet you’re just selfish enough to let Jack lie down in your place.

“You know, Jack’s softer than you. He’d cry long before you did. I wouldn’t even bother to paralyze him to intubate him. I bet a good, sturdy cervical collar would keep him still enough. He’d scream the entire time, too, right up until it cut off his voice. But he’d still let me drown him in PFCs, all for you Mac, anything to make sure you survived. And you’d just let him because you’ve done the calculations — it’s the only way you both survive, right? Even if it means destroying Dalton in the process.”

Murdoc is right. There’s only so much Mac’s body can take before it fails, but if the choice was between dying and letting Jack be tortured, it’s no contest. Jack would absolutely lie down in front of a train for Mac, no question, and that’s the problem. Jack has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to Mac. But Mac has never abused Jack’s protectiveness. He wouldn’t. Jack is family. The thought of Jack being on the table in place of Mac makes his skin crawl. Surprisingly, the thought of protecting Jack, and the rest of his Phoenix family, makes all of this easier to bear. They’re not going to have suffer this, he can do that for them. He can make this count.

“Oh, there’s the fight I love to see in you, Angus. Good. You were looking a little… pathetic.”

Mac flares his nostrils and glares. Murdoc just rummages in the box of probes with a self-satisfied smile. It hits Mac at once what Murdoc is doing, they way he’s playing with Mac, twisting Mac’s responses to fit what he wants. It’s disgusting, and yes pathetic, how easily Mac falls in line. 

Murdoc smiles wide as he turns, four more probes in his hand. “Your carefully sculpted abdominal muscles are sorely neglected. We’re going to remedy that.”

Mac bites hard against the block and tries to brace himself for the pain. The probes slide under skin at an angle like the ones in his chest and he wonders again if Jack’s coming. But that’s not really a question, because of course Jack is coming. Jack, Boze, Riley, Matty, and every Phoenix resource is coming for him. The real question is when. They’ve long since missed their chance to stop this, the only thing left is whether or not they get there before Mac dies.

And that’s a helluva thought. Mac’s never been great at goodbyes, never known what to say. He prefers to avoid situations where emotions run high and feelings get hurt, but with the thought of no second chances, Mac wishes he could say something to them, _anything._

The switch flips and Mac’s entire body goes taut against the bed. He tries not to pass out, not to fight the vent. If he can make it, he won’t need to say goodbye. He just has to survive, even if maybe the alternative was more merciful. 

Mac writhes as the pain seems to burn through every nerve ending in his body, so the sound of a directional charge breaking in the door behind him doesn’t make sense at first. Boots thump against the floor and voices call out, but Mac can’t answer, he can’t ask for help, can’t tell them to turn it _off._

It takes a minute, and then the shock stops and Jack is the one standing at the control panel. For a split second, Mac’s stomach drops. It can’t be Jack. It _can’t._ But then Jack is rushing to Mac’s side.

“Oh, God, Mac. Hey buddy, hey.” Jack’s voice is soft and he slips his hand into Mac’s. Mac can’t help the way his hand closes tight on Jack’s. “Hey can you hear me, pal?”

Mac squeezes twice, the standard “once for no, twice for yes” long since ingrained in both of them.

Jack’s head dips. “Oh, thank God.” Mac watches as Jack gets himself together and looks back up. “Okay, kid. We wanna get you out of here. What can I undo?”

Mac wants to cry because he can’t say anything. _All of it,_ he thinks. _Undo all of it._ But Jack already knows that’s what Mac wants. It should be obvious. Why isn’t he doing anything?

“Jack, he can’t talk,” Riley says. Mac had his eyes so fixed on Jack that he missed her approach. One hand lands soft on his arm, well clear of the probes, and the other takes his hand in a mirror of Jack. Somewhere behind him, Mac can hear Matty shouting into the phone, demanding medical _now._

Jack says makes a joke about how it’s finally his chance to lecture Mac on the merits of the Goonies, but Mac doesn’t really care. He wants _out._ He wants them to let him out of the restraints so he can pull out the probes and extubate himself. He tugs on the restraints and it sends waves of pain through his muscles as they tense around the probes. He wouldn’t have to hurt himself to get free if they would just let him go. Why aren’t they letting him go?

“Mac, Mac!” Riley’s voice cuts through the haze of his panic and Mac turns his eyes to her. “Matty got through to Dr. Weaver. We have to wait for her to get here to take you off the ventilator, but we can pull all the electrodes — those are electrodes right?” Mac squeezes their hands twice, relieved that they’re going to help, and Riley nods. “Do you want us to take those out?”

Mac squeezes both their hands twice, and nods vigorously, the tube pulling hard in his mouth and throat. The pain brings fresh tears to his eyes and they roll down his cheeks, cooling as they go, to drip into his ears.

“Hey, easy, Mac. We got you. We’re here. It’s all gonna be over soon and we’ll get out of here, okay? Just hang on.”

Mac nods again, not quite as hard, and clenches his teeth on the bite block as he braces for them to start pulling out the probes. 

“I think fast is best,” Jack says.

“Yeah, alright,” Riley agrees. “Here we go, Mac.”

The probes don’t come out at the same time, but the removals are quick. Mac’s thankful that, for the most part, it’s not as bad as he expected. Little moments of bright pain and then gone in a flash. The biggest relief is feeling like he can relax his body, stop staying so tense while he tries to protect himself from more damage. He can move without jostling the probes. It’s almost over. They got there in time.

While Jack and Riley quickly put cotton balls and bandaids on each wound and then cover him with a shock blanket, Mac closes his eyes. Murdoc is gone, long since hustled out of the room by Phoenix agents, and now it’s just friendlies. The vent is doing all the work, there’s nothing Mac has to do, and for a brief moment, the constant undercurrent of panic begins to recede.

But behind him, Mac hears the rolling stool, and he can’t help but open his eyes, his hands flapping to get Jack and Riley’s attention.

“Easy, blondie. It’s just me.” Matty’s voice is soft and Mac tries to slow his racing heart. One of her hands touches the side of his head and then her fingers thread into his hair. She runs the tips of her fingers lightly over his scalp and the contrasting sensations of the gentle massage against the pain is too much. Before he realizes what’s happening, he’s crying. 

Everything breaks through at once, spilling out like water from a breached dam. Riley and Jack are both holding his hands again, but it’s not enough to stop the hurt, and his chest heaves with the force of his sobs. The liquid begins to slosh into the trach tube and the sensation feels like drowning. He fights it, relaxes onto the bed and tries not to fight. But when Matty puts her forehead to his, it’s too much and Mac can’t keep from crying all over again, and once the coughing starts he can’t stop it.

He twists against the bed, thrashes in his restraints, his desperation and panic and fear all mixing together until he can’t focus. He _can’t calm down._

Jack is screaming for a medic, because why didn’t they bring medics on a rescue mission, and Riley’s fingers press to the side of Mac’s neck, feeling for his pulse. But Matty’s the one who helps. She focuses all her attention on Mac, her hands gentle on his head, her fingers softly wiping away tears, and it’s nothing like Murdoc because it’s skin-on-skin, because her hands shake, because she’s hurting along with him. 

“You’re safe, Mac. I’ve got you and we have Dr. Weaver on her way now. I know this hurts and it’s scary, but we aren’t going to let anything else happen to you. I’m so sorry it took us this long to get here, but you are safe now, you are. We’re not going anywhere. And I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to stop fighting the vent, Mac. This is almost over, if you can just wait it out. I promise.”

She’s so quiet, almost impossible to hear over Jack and Riley’s panicked voices and the blood rushing in his ears, but Mac focuses on Matty’s voice over the pain and chaos, and slowly he finds a way to get the coughing under control. 

“Good, Mac. Good. I’m proud of you,” Matty murmurs. Mac can feel the warmth of her breath against his ear and he realizes that she’s laid her head on the bed next to his. He knows that logically it’s so that he can hear her, but having someone so close is unbearably comforting. He feels vulnerable and broken open, visible to everyone in the room. But as excruciating as it is to feel so seen, Mac is desperate that she not leave. He can’t tell her that though, he can’t do anything other than lean into the hand she keeps threading through his hair.

Mac hears sniffling from further down the bed and can’t tell if it’s Jack or Riley, but the thought of opening his eyes is too overwhelming. There’s already so much going on, so much input, so much touching and talking and he’s still _hurting._ So he listens and squeezes their hands in his. 

“So there’s no laughing allowed right now,” Matty starts. It’s her normal work-voice, but she doesn’t move away and Mac can’t thank her enough. “But Dalton over there, while we were searching for you, he actually tried to build a ray gun out of a laser pointer, a handful of paperclips, several pairs of reading glasses, and a 9V battery.”

At that Mac does open his eyes so that he can properly glare at Jack. Jack laughs wetly, not even trying to mask the tears in his eyes, and ducks his head sheepishly. For such a thoroughly ridiculous idea, Jack at least managed to cobble together a series of loosely related components, but his body language implies that something happened beyond just the inevitable failure of the project. Mac squeezes Jack’s hand a few times to get him to elaborate, and Jack caves.

“Alright, alright. Matty’s not just making that up. I totally did try that. Shocked the shit out of myself and pinched my thumb with the pliers,” Jack admits. “In my defense, I was just waiting on Riley to do the internet magic and you making them little doo-hickeys always makes the waiting go easier so I figured I’d make my own.”

Mac rolls his eyes and stuffs down the warm affection he feels for Jack because all that’s going to do is make him more emotional. He feels pathetic being so needy, so desperate for the people around him. He needed his dad like this once, too, and he left. It’s scary to let them so close, to let them see how weak he is. Maybe after they see how much work he is, they’ll change their minds about him. He wants to tell them that he’s okay, that he can take it, but there’s no way to say anything. He can’t even ask them to stop touching him and he’s not sure he could take it if they did. 

It doesn’t take much longer before Dr. Weaver hurries into the room. Matty sits up and moves over to the side by Jack, though her hands never leave him. Riley moves farther down the bed to make room, her hand warm on his ankle and her thumb softly rubbing little circles against his skin. 

“Can’t say I’m glad to be seeing you again, given the circumstances,” Dr. Weaver says as she pulls back the blanket and presses her stethoscope to his chest. As she listens and moves the diaphragm around, Mac can see her expression darken incrementally. Finally, she pulls the earpieces out and loops the stethoscope around her neck. “I apologize for my frankness but I need to know what he did. If you would like privacy for that, I can ask for everyone to clear the room.”

Mac swallows and shakes his head. This is the last thing he wants to talk about, but he’s getting the impression that telling her gets him off the vent and out of the room so he’s willing to play ball. It would be easier if he could write or use a phone to type. He tugs against the restraint, looking back and forth between Dr. Weaver and his hand.

She smiles ruefully and shakes her head. “I asked them to leave you restrained for a reason. Being intubated is usually a quite upsetting experience and many patients try to extubate themselves if not restrained. Given that your chest sounds like it’s entirely full of water, I’m not sure that taking you off the ventilator is safe. But back to your chest sounds, did he waterboard you?”

Mac shakes his head, and taps his index finger against Jack’s hand. 

Jack scowls and watches Mac’s hand as he taps. “That ain’t a word, hoss.”

Mac’s stomach clenches but that’s stupid because Jack has always called him “hoss.” Just because Murdoc also did, doesn’t mean _anything._

“What’s he saying?” Dr. Weaver asks.

“Uh, it’s just three letters over and over — CPFCPFCP....”

Dr. Weaver’s eyes widen and she peers down at Mac. “Your lungs are full of PFCs?”

Mac nods and Jack squeezes his hand hard. 

“Well, Doc?” Jack asks.

Dr. Weaver shakes her head. “I’ve got to make some phone calls.”

Mac does his best to tune her out while she talks, instead turning his head ever so slightly into Matty’s hand. She presses her hand more firmly against his head and Jack must see because he grips Mac’s hand in both of his. Normally, Mac would be all ears. It’s a chance to learn, and what she’s sorting out is his medical care; he might be able to offer something of value. But he can’t think straight, doesn’t want to consider what she’s going to suggest if it doesn’t involve extubating him. Mac closes his eyes and counts the breaths of the ventilator, listening to the rhythmic hiss and click as his chest rises and falls. Finally, there’s a soft touch on his left arm and he opens his eyes to look at Dr. Weaver.

“Is there any reason, besides a chest of liquid, that you can’t breathe unassisted?”

Mac squeezes Jack’s hand once and Jack dutifully relays the answer.

“Okay, well in that case, here’s the deal. Human trials with PFCs are very limited — pretty much only animal models and the terminally ill have been studied. So what we’re looking at are two options: one, we bag you and continue ventilation until we get to the ED where we can suction your lungs, or two, we use the method that they do with the animal models, which is to let gravity and coughing do the work. Personally, I think the sooner your lungs are evacuated and you’re off mechanical support the better, but that also carries some inherent risks because we are not well suited to dealing with any emergency that may arise here. If we extubate and you fail to breathe properly, I doubt we’ll be able to reintubate; you’d need an emergency tracheotomy which, honestly, you’ve been through enough shit today, so I’m not a fan of that option.”

Mac taps again on Jack’s hand. “Test first?” Jack asks.

Dr. Weaver frowns. “Yeah, that’s a good idea, but keep in mind, you may not be able to move enough air to avoid acidosis.”

Mac taps. “Short test?”

Dr. Weaver nods. “I think I’m getting the message here, MacGyver. You like option two.”

Mac nods and squeezes Jack’s hand twice. 

“Let me get supplies in case this goes pear shaped.”

“We do have an ambulance on-site. Medics are waiting outside the room. Get whatever you need from them,” Matty tells her.

The next few minutes are filled with movement. Everyone but Jack is ushered away from him, the only reason Jack is left is because he put his hand on the handle of his pistol when a medic suggested he move. It’s both a relief not be smothered in concern and also distressing. But the medics aren’t total strangers, Mac’s met them on various missions, and they’re efficient. Soon he’s got actual monitoring equipment and the neglected IV in his right arm is disconnected from the now empty bag and capped.

“Ready for the test?” Dr. Weaver asks.

Mac gives her a thumbs up and tries not to panic when she disconnects the trach tube from the vent. 

“Just go nice and easy. You know how breathing works, like riding a bike except you’ve been doing it your whole life,” Jack says encouragingly. 

But it’s not that he can’t, because the first thing he does is suck in as much of a full breath as he can. The problem is that it _hurts._ Not an ache like a chest cold or a couple punches to the ribs; breathing with a chest full of liquid feels like his ribs are being pried apart, like the harder he breathes in, the harder the chest feels compressed pushing everything out of him. The pain shoots through his chest, his back, and up into his shoulders, and he tightens his hold on Jack’s hand. But no matter the pain, he struggles through it for as long as Weaver wants him to because he wants to be done with this, he _needs_ to be done.

“Okay, that’s enough. I’m reconnecting the vent, just exhale naturally and let it take over,” she instructs.

After the agony of the last couple of minutes, it’s no hardship for him to take the break as it’s offered. He chest reinflates and it hurts, it never stopped hurting, but it’s not the agony of moments ago. 

“How do you feel?”

Mac give her a thumbs up and Dr. Weaver laughs. 

“You’re a terrible liar — I know that hurt like hell. So, you started to desat at the end there, but you made it two minutes which is actually longer than I expected. You’re definitely able to breathe on your own so it’s just going to be a matter of getting the fluid out of your lungs in a timely manner. Right now, we’re gonna give you a few minutes to recover and reoxygenate from all the work you just did, and then we’re gonna try extubating you. Still sound good? There’s no points for trying to be a badass. Going to the hospital and being suctioned isn’t the cheap way out, it’s still going to feel like shit.”

Mac gives her another thumbs up, and she nods. 

“Alright, just hang out for now,” she instructs him with a soft pat on the shoulder. 

Mac hopes that Jack doesn’t think anything of it when he grips harder, but the end may actually be in sight, nevermind that it’s felt right there the whole time, only for there to be more and more reasons to delay the end of this hell. He needs something to help him focus, he needs data, he needs to talk, to get Jack to yell at him, something to take him out of his own head.

_Where?_ he taps against Jack’s hand.

Jack’s eyebrows go up. “Where are we?”

Mac nods.

“It’s the maintenance room under an old parking deck. We’re in Compton.”

_How find?_

“Uh, CCTV cameras, license plates, I might have punched a couple dudes, you know, they were being skeevy and not talking, and, well, you know me. I got a little bit worked up, but they told us what we needed eventually. And then we talked to the dude that paid them, and then he told us about the job he did for this weasley little fucker in a black trenchcoat. So we tossed the place where they did the sale, and then more license plates and CCTV cameras, and from there all Riles had to do was track his car across six jurisdictions until he pulled into this shitty parking deck and poof. Found ya.”

It sounds like maybe a tad bit more happened than Jack is letting on, but it’s probably not wrong per se. 

_How long?_ It’s not necessarily something Mac wants to know, but at the same time he thinks it might help him contextualize how long he’s been down here with Murdoc.

“Once we realized you were missing, it took us about three hours. But we didn’t miss you for probably three before that.” Jack looks sheepish and Mac knows he’d feel the same in his place, but finding Mac when Murdoc didn’t want them to is no small feat and they managed it _fast._ More than anything he’s appreciative. 

“Alright, MacGyver. You ready to get this show on the road?” Dr. Weaver asks.

Mac gives her another thumbs up because nodding is really starting to hurt — his whole throat feels like a giant bruise. 

“Alright, here’s how this is gonna go. Make sure you ask any questions beforehand because once we get going we can’t stop and it’s gonna go fast. If you’re gonna panic, which is totally reasonable given everything else, I’m gonna need you to do it after. 

“So here’s the itinerary. First, we’re gonna remove all the restraints. Jack’s gonna hold your right arm, and Mickey over here is gonna hold your left arm. This is just in case the extubation makes you wanna punch me in the face, alright? I like my face a lot, thanks.”

She smiles and winks at Mac and the corners of his mouth turn up in response. He’s always appreciated her bedside manner, she doesn’t give or take any shit which given the people she treats is probably a requisite of the job.

“The extubation goes fast. You’re gonna cough as hard as you can on my signal, not that you’re gonna have an option. As soon as the tube comes out, we’re gonna dangle you over the edge of the bed, and you’re going to keep coughing. As the liquid drains into your nose and mouth, spit it out. We’re gonna have a high-flow nasal cannula on you before we get started so you’ll have oxygen. As much as you’re going to want to cough until it’s all out, you’re gonna have to stop and breathe or you’ll pass out. 

“All in all, I’m thinking sixty seconds, ninety max, until this part is over. Do you have any questions? There are no dumb questions.”

Mac takes a minute to think, but ultimately squeezes Jack’s hand just the once. 

Dr. Weaver pats Mac’s shoulder gently. “Alright, here we go.”

As Jack, Riley, and the medics unbuckle the restraints, it’s everything Mac can do not to wiggle and stretch. He’s stiff and everything aches, the thought of moving is so appealing, but he knows that he might alarm Weaver and everyone else. 

“Jesus, Mac,” Jack mutters. Mac looks at his wrist and it’s bruised all the way around, a deep, livid black. Jack catches Mac’s eye and Mac can see the self-recrimination there. Jack’s going to be beating up himself over this for months. Mac fought so hard he injured himself and Jack wasn’t there. 

Then, Mickey and Jack’s hands are pressing his forearms to bed, well clear of the bruising on his wrists. Mac sees Weaver connect a syringe to a port on the trach tube and the pressure in his throat decreases just a little. 

“Cough hard,” she says, and Mac barely has to try before the tube moves in his throat, triggering the cough reflex. He gags, coughs, and tube is out. “Move him!”

Abruptly, Mac is rolled and the top half of his body is eased over the edge of the bed. Someone, probably Jack, has an arm around his waist holding him so that he doesn’t just slip headfirst off the bed onto the concrete floor. The medics each have an arm and are bracing him against their legs.

As he coughs, the liquid in his lungs rushes down and out onto the floor. He can feel the press of a stethoscope against his back as he coughs, and he tries to stop coughing and breathe to get air into his lungs, but it feels impossible. There’s so much water in his sinuses and pouring down his throat that there’s no way he’s getting air in, but Dr. Weaver shouts, “Excellent breath! One more!!” and Mac does.

“Good, now cough,” she instructs. 

The liquid tastes awful and Mac fights not to gag while coughing. He can also feel the panic welling up that Weaver had warned about. Every mouthful of PFC he brings up just makes way for yet another and another and another. It seems never-ending and it still hurts so much.

“Your lungs are sounding a lot better, MacGyver. You’re doing great. This is almost over.” Weaver’s hand skims lightly over his back while he coughs and it takes off the barest edge of panic, at least for the moment.

After an eternity coughing and gasping, the amount he brings up with each awful spasm begins to decrease, and then slowly stop altogether.

“Okay, get him back up,” Weaver orders. 

Mac lands on the bed so fast that his head spins from the change in blood pressure. Someone puts a rebreather mask on him, and Mac tries to slap it away. He can breathe. He did the work. He listened. He _behaved._ Why are they trying to put more things on him?

But he can’t get the mask off because Jack and Mickey have his arms again and he’s too tired to fight them off. He’s too weak. Too pathetic. He’s going to disappoint them just like he did Dad. 

“Hey, Mac.” It’s Matty again, somehow she’s right back where she was and her hand is in his hair again. “Hey, hey, you can look at me now. That mask — it’s just oxygen, just enough to help you recover from all the coughing. No one’s hurting you. No one is _going_ to hurt you. You hear me? No one is going to hurt you. But we need you to stop fighting. We need you to help us help you. We can’t do this without your cooperation, okay? You’re tough, Mac. You got this. Just breathe.”

Mac doesn’t want to cry again, not here, not like this. The first time was bad enough, but he feels cracked, frayed around the edges. Matty is nothing like his mother and yet she’s all he can think about because no one has been this gentle with him since she died. He’s never built up defenses to gentleness and it cuts sharper than any knife. 

But no matter how much it hurts, Matty’s words do help because he no longer feels like he’s being smothered. She smiles and strokes his hair, and Jack and Mickey ease up on his arms.

“Good job, Mac. That was good,” Matty praises.

While Weaver and medics talk about his oxygen sats and fiddle with the flow, Mac hopes he can still salvage some dignity out of this. Jack doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, he doesn’t care, but Mac sees where Jack’s shirt is wet where he was holding Mac. He knows it’s urine from when his bladder released when Murdoc paralyzed him. Somehow, at the time, it wasn’t really something that bothered him. But now, helpless and dependent on everyone around him, it’s just another sign of his failure to measure up. 

Under him the bed moves and Mac finds himself sitting up at a forty-five degree angle.

“How’re you feeling?” Dr. Weaver asks. 

Mac swallows and his throat throbs, but he manages to clear the back of his mouth enough to talk. “Alright I think.”

“You think? What aren’t you sure about?” asks Dr. Weaver worriedly.

“My entire body hurts,” Mac explains. His voice rasps as he tries to speak up, and raises a hand to his throat to rub.

Dr. Weaver nods. “Yeah, that’s fair. Anything that concerns you? Anything you think we need to treat?”

Mac thinks for a moment and then shakes his head. “No.”

Dr. Weaver nods and puts her hand on Mac’s shoulder. “That’s honestly surprising, but I’m glad to hear it. We still need to get you checked over at the hospital because of your lungs, but they’ll probably discharge you today.”

The thought of going to the hospital fills Mac with dread. But he doesn’t want to be a baby about some needle sticks and a check up, so he nods softly and keeps his misgivings to himself. 

“Can we leave? Please?” He hates the plaintive note to his voice, but he’s desperate. 

Weaver nods. “Sure, Macgyver. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

*****

Weaver’s prediction turns out to be good and Mac’s out of the hospital and home in under six hours. It’s only just after dinnertime and Matty picks up Thai from Mac’s favorite place. Mac hasn’t eaten all day, but he can’t say he has much of an appetite, not even for pad see ew. But he knows he has to eat for his body to heal, and also to keep everyone else off his back.

Riley, Bozer, and Matty clear out shortly after they finish eating, though not before a round of careful hugs. Jack, however, refuses to budge. 

“I’m fine,” Mac insists. “You don’t have to stay and babysit me.”

Jack raises his eyebrow. “Who said anything about babysitting? Dude, you were just tortured, shit I couldn’t even have dreamt up. It’s okay not to be okay. In fact, you probably shouldn’t be okay. And since you’re not okay, then you shouldn’t have to be alone. It’s simple math, Mac. You’re hurting and I’m not leaving. Suck it up.”

Mac wants to say “thanks” and “get the hell out” all at once. He’s not going to ask Jack to carry his pain for him just like he wouldn’t ask Jack to take his place on that fucking table. He’s not that kind of person. Mac loves his family enough to not be a burden, not even when they say they want it. His dad said it was okay to hurt and need things but when it came right down to it, it wasn’t okay. It’s a lesson that Mac’s never forgotten. Maybe Murdoc thought he could tear down Mac’s relationships by tearing down Mac, but Mac’s stronger than that. It won’t work.

“I appreciate it, but just so you know, I’m not ready to talk.”

Jack nods. “Yeah, I get that, and I’m not asking you to talk if you don’t want to. I just wanna be here with you now.”

Mac nods. He gets it, he does. Jack literally lost him earlier in the day and by the time they found him… Mac doesn’t want to think about what it looked like to Jack. Mac doesn’t want to think about it at all, but he knows that watching what happened had to do a number on Jack. He’d certainly feel the same way if their roles were reversed. 

“Thanks,” Mac manages. 

“No problemo. Now by the way, did you talk to Matty about time off?” Jack asks.

Mac nods. “Two weeks. Most everything should be healed by then. Give me some time to process before jumping back out into the field.”

Jack nods approvingly. “Good. Smart. I knew I liked you. Now sit your skinny ass down on the sofa. We’re watching Howl’s Moving Castle because I found it on a shelf in your living room and I know you like that weird fantasy shit.”

Mac smiles as he makes his way to the sofa. Jack knows him so well, and no one has cared for him better than Jack has since his grandfather passed. For Jack, and for the rest of them, Mac can keep it together.

*****

_Two Months Later_

“Alright listen up people. The compound where you’re making the deal has state of the art security. There is no earwig, no spy camera, nothing that you can sneak in on your person,” Matty announces.

“So we’re going in blind?” Mac asks.

“Not exactly. I said not ‘on’ your person. I didn’t say anything about ‘in.’”

Jack pulls a face that makes Mac and Riley laugh, and Matty scowl. “Don’t be a pervert, Dalton.”

“Hey, I mean you said ‘in,’ and I don’t know. Maybe you got this fancy equipment from, like, some alien abduction stuff? You know where all that stuff goes. Right up the-” Jack finishes his sentence with a whistle and a crude hand gesture. Some days, he just does this stuff to see if he can make Mac smile; it doesn’t work like it used to.

“Oh, God. Shut up, will you? It’s going in your mouth.” Matty pauses and points a finger at Jack who already has his mouth open for another comment. “Dalton, don’t start. Our techs have developed a comm that fits like a partial. Since I know that none of you have your wisdom teeth, there’s space for a small false tooth. That tooth will send and receive audio comms only.”

“Bone conduction?” Mac asks.

Matty points at Mac. “You got it, blondie. Now everyone get down to the lab because you’re wheels up in one hour.”

They turn and hightail it down to the lab to get geared up. Mac stands at the back of the elevator with Bozer, Riley, and Jack in front of him. When he first came back to work, the personal space thing was understandable. He was prickly about people being too close and downright jumpy when folks touched him, and Jack got that, really he did. There was no way that Captain NutterButter didn’t have his creepy little hands all over Mac, not that Mac ever told him word one about what happened. So while it stung, Jack let it slide. 

In fact, he’s been letting a whole helluva lot more than that slide. The way Mac snaps at the people around him, and suddenly never has time to hang out with any of them anymore. And yeah, depression is kinda part and parcel for being sadistically tortured, but Jack knows from experience that isolating himself won’t help. 

And then there’s Mac’s sudden coffee habit even though he’s never liked it before. Jack has to wonder if the kid even sleeps anymore, but the way Mac has permanent bags under his eyes kinda answers the question.

It bugs the shit out of Jack, but lets all of it slide because the last thing Mac needs is someone crawling up his ass about not getting better on someone else’s schedule. 

Jack makes stupid jokes and small talk with Riley while Bozer gets his comm glued in place, and Mac stands off to the side doing his best impression of someone with a stick up their ass. 

“MacGyver, you’re up,” directs the tech. 

Mac sits in the chair as directed and Jack can’t help but note all the ways Mac isn’t okay with this. But like a good little soldier he opens his mouth and lets the tech get to work. Or rather, she tries to. Jack watches it all fall apart in slow-motion. Mac’s knuckles go white as he grips the arm rests on the chair, the muscles in his neck cord despite the fact that she’s done nothing more than pack gauze in his mouth to dry up the area, and his breathing goes quick and shallow. 

What finishes it off is the little dentists’ tool, the one that blows air. She’s drying up the rest of the site for the comm and Jack hears the little hiss of air as she works, the click as she stops. Jack, for as stupid as he pretends to be, isn’t so stupid as to miss the similarity, hell it still haunts his dreams a lot of nights.

In a second, Mac is spitting out the gauze and scrambling out of the chair, pushing the tech out of his way as he goes. 

“Mac?” Riley and Bozer call in unison as Mac flees the room.

Jack pats Riley’s arm. “Why don’t you go ahead and get fitted? I got this.”

Jack follows at a walking pace, despite Mac having a decent head start, because there’s nothing like chasing someone who’s freaking out to make it worse. As he pokes around the Phoenix, Jack’s phone dings. He pulls it out and thumbs open the text message from Matty.

_Check the roof. I’ll be there in 5._

Jack smiles and starts climbing the stairs. Sure enough, there’s Mac, curled in on himself, his hands on the back of his head and his head between his knees. It doesn’t take a genius to know a panic attack when he sees one and Jack makes sure step a little harder than necessary to warn Mac of his approach.

“Go away,” Mac mutters when Jack gets close.

“Nuh uh. I think I’ve done entirely too much of that lately. We’re gonna talk because you can’t carry on like this anymore. Now take your time. I don’t think we have anywhere to be,” Jack says as he lowers himself to sit beside Mac.

“Mission. I’ll be fine a minute,” Mac argues in between too quick breaths.

“You don’t need to worry about the mission anymore, Mac,” Matty says, sitting on the other side of Mac. 

Both Mac and Jack jump. “You’re a goddamn ninja, Matty,” Jack gripes.

“I didn’t mean to spook you, Mac,” she says softly.

Jack’s only heard her use that voice once before and he swallows hard against the swell of memory and emotion. 

“I can handle it, Matty,” Mac argues. Jack’s never heard him sound that angry at Matty before, hell he’s barely ever angry at anyone. Or well, he wasn’t before.

“I pulled some agents from another task force. Bozer and Riley are going to assist, but you’re staying home with me and Jack. We need to talk.”

Mac swipes at the tears on his cheeks and sits up a little. “About what?” It sounds like a challenge rather than a genuine question.

“Well, I mean for starters maybe how you’re doing. You ain’t exactly a picture of mental health there, hoss,” Jack points out.

Mac flinches hard. “I hate that. Stop calling me that.”

Jack’s brow furrows. “Hoss?” Mac flinches again and Jack gets it. “Shit, he called you that didn’t he? He did it because he knew I call you that and he-”

Mac brings his hands down to the rooftop, slamming his palms into the gravel. “Yes, okay?” he yells. “Yes, he called me that, and yes, it bothers me now. It’s just a word, Jack. It doesn’t matter.”

“Mac, are you going to therapy?” Matty asks softly.

“Matty, stop with the kid gloves, okay? When I was still- when I was still there, and you kept me calm… that was different. But I’m not now, and I don’t need you to baby me.” Jack can hear the rage, the pain, the frustration behind it all, and he gets it. The thing he doesn’t get is why Mac hasn’t come to him.

“Okay, that’s fine,” Matty says, her voice slipping easily back to its normal cadence. “Are you in therapy, Mac?”

“No.”

“Okay, let me lay this out for you. You have anger issues and panic attacks. You don’t spend time with friends outside of work and since you don’t have any other family that means you spend all of your non-work hours alone. You’ve developed an aversion to physical contact. You’re obviously in a deep depression, and what’s more, your field work is slipping.”

“That was one mistake! Everyone makes mistakes, Matty. Are you going to hold it over me that I’m drinking coffee now, too?”

“I was getting to that, yeah. It’s a sign of sleeplessness, though I’m not sure if it’s nightmares or insomnia. Probably a mix of both. Either way, it’s a problem. And yes, you’re right. Mistakes happen because we are human. We all make them and this job is high pressure, high stakes, with no margin for error. Slip ups are inevitable. What makes your mistake so glaring isn’t that it happened, it’s that it was basic math that caused it. You couldn’t focus on adding two numbers together and instead of blowing the lock off a door, you blew a six foot hole in a wall. If it were Dalton messing up first grade addition I’d forgive it, eventually. But you? It’s a sign of something else.”

It’s brutal having it all laid out like that, but it’s what Mac needs because he doesn’t fight back this time. He just sits there and stares at his feet. 

“Mac.” Matty’s voice is quiet, but definitely not soft. “Tell me why you aren’t coming to us? I’m your boss, so I get not talking to me, though I will take this opportunity to remind you that my door is always open. But Dalton? Riley? Bozer? That I don’t get. Why are you choosing to suffer alone when literally any one of us would bend over backwards to help you deal with this.”

Mac swallows and pulls his arms around his knees. “It’s not your job.”

And just like that, realization lands on Jack — and clearly Matty as well — like a fucking surface-to-surface missile.

“Is this because your dad left? You think he left when your mom died because you needed too much?” Jack asks.

Mac shrugs. “It wasn’t hard to put together. He was there for fun stuff like building a miniature railgun or a telegraph, but when it came to talking about what happened, he couldn’t.”

Jack can’t believe what he’s hearing. “And you thought, what? You’d open up to us about being fucking tortured and then we’d leave? Mac, we asked! We badgered you until you told us to get the fuck out of your living room! We didn’t stop asking because it was easier than trying to help. We were just trying to respect your boundaries, man.” 

Jack feels like the biggest cow patty in the field. Mac’s been balling this up inside him because he thought it was the only way to keep the people he loved in his life at all, and that’s just not okay. God, one day, Jack’s gonna find ol’ Mac Sr. and punch him in his stupid face for ever making Mac think family worked like this.

Mac flinches hard, and Jack looks over to see Matty’s hand on Mac’s arm. “I’m not letting go because you need to get this through your head _right now._ I will never force you to disclose your trauma to me or anyone else you work with. But you are getting a goddamn therapist by the end of the week or you’re benched. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mac answers, his voice barely above a whisper.

“That said, you need to understand something else. Your father fucked up in the worst way when he left you. Family is about supporting one another when we’re hurting, not just when it’s easy. And Mac, I know you don’t have that experience so this doesn’t make sense right now, but have I ever promised you something and not followed through?”

Mac shakes his head softly. “No, you haven’t, Matty.”

“And I’m not about to start now. We’re here for you, how ever you need us.”

Mac goes completely still and Jack can see the way he can’t quite believe it even though he clearly desperately wants to. That’s Jack’s cue and he scoots closer, bumping his shoulder against Mac’s.

“Hey, burger-kid.”

Mac flinches, but not like he did before. Not like he’s startled, but like he can’t stand the contact, like being touched _hurts_ all the way through. Jack knows that feeling real well. Where everything hurts so much that comfort hurts, too. But the only way to fix that is to power through and he wraps an arm around Mac’s shoulder pulling him close. Mac doesn’t relax or lean into him at all.

“I don’t _need_ to be held, Jack,” Mac says.

“Yeah, well, I disagree,” Jack says, and he hopes that ignoring Mac’s boundaries isn’t going to be a monumental fuck up.

They sit like that, Mac stiff as a board and Jack trying to break through the eight thousand walls Mac’s put up in the last two months. The walls that had started to come down earlier in the conversation are back up and Jack can practically feel Mac stuffing everything down. It’s awful and it feels like losing him all over again, except this time there’s no one he can arrest or punch or shoot to make this stop.

Jack is wracking his brain to come up with something to regain the momentum that they had when Mac opens his mouth.

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

Matty puts her hand on Mac’s. “We don’t want anything from you. We want you to know that you’re loved and to stop thinking that the only way you can be loved is by suffering in silence. Let yourself accept some comfort from time to time. Don’t push us away. That’s it. You don’t have to be okay or better or over it. Just let us in. Do you think you can do that?”

Mac nods. “Yeah, I can try.”

Matty pats his arm. “Good. Now I have to get down to the war room. I’m gonna leave you in Dalton’s occasionally capable hands-”

“Hey!” Jack objects, but Matty plows right over him.

“-but if you need something, my door is always open.”

And then Matty gets up and makes her way back into the building, leaving Jack hugging a very tense Mac. 

“So, uh, since we’re off the clock for a while, you wanna go get some steak?”

Mac shakes his head. “Not really up for people.”

“Fair. I’ll get one of them delivery services to drop it at your place and we can eat and watch Terminator, while you talk about robots and Murphy’s Law.”

Mac snorts softly and Jack feels him relax incrementally. “That’s Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, Jack.”

“Yeah, yeah. So are we good to go?”

Mac nods and huffs something might be the beginning of a laugh. “Yeah, Jack. We’re good to go.”

Jack hugs Mac tighter, giving him a gentle shake. “Well, what the hell are we waiting for? Let’s get off this roof. My butt’s numb and the gravel’s leaving little marks all over my derriere.”

“No one wants to know about your butt, Jack,” Mac says as he gets off the ground. Jack accepts the offered hand up, and they head towards the roof access. 

“Bud, I hate to point this out, but I think we’re a little past that part of our relationship.”

Mac just laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah, maybe we are.”

As they head down the stairs in silence, Jack knows this is only the first step on a long, long road. But there will be other steps, too. Like how, by the end of dinner, Mac will make some off-handed comment about “taking a deep breath,” and by then, Jack will have the courage to press Mac about it. And after a little coaxing, Mac will talk, and they’ll be up until two in the morning, drinking beers that have long since gone warm while they sit on the deck. 

Maybe it’ll be the cover of night, or the lateness of the hour, or the beers, or maybe even Mac finally _gets it,_ but Mac will finally let Jack see him cry, will let Jack carry some of it for him. And if Jack’s eyes get a little wet, well, no one is gonna be the wiser. 

And for all that it’s good for Mac, none of that fixes anything. It’s not gonna make the nightmares stop, and Mac will still flinch the next time someone touches him. But when they go back to the office, Mac won’t push everyone so far away that he forgets what it’s like to have them at all. They’ll smile and buy him lunch, and if he gets a little snippy they’ll just wait him out, because it takes baby steps.

It’ll keep getting better, Jacks knows, even though the road is gonna take a lot of twists and turns. But Jack’s in it for the long haul, always has been. All he has to do is stay the course.


End file.
